The Lone Detective is an online puzzle game, in which you are put in charge of solving a criminal case, usually a cold case, which is a term for case that was already closed due to lack of evidence or lack of solution. But all of those cases do have a solution hidden somewhere in their files and it is up to you to find them. If you're a fan of such shows as Columbo or Prime Suspect you know that the whole essence of the murder mystery genre is to find that one little bit of information.
The Lone Detective is an online detective game, which started originally around 2002 with different rules (PBeM) and structure. After years of experiments we have reached the current structure, which can be summarized in a single sentence: The Lone Detective is like reading a crime novel, where the second half of the story is missing. You will find it the crime scene description, notes of the original detective in charge, the transcripts of interrogations and the evidence that were gathered. All you have to do is analyze them and put together the story that was behind that crime.
There are two ways to play The Lone Detective: the easy way and the hard way. I know it's cliche, but to make things worse it is up to you to decide which way is the easy one and which is the hard one, so let's call them short way and long way.
The long way is, in our opinion, the hard way. You get through the evidence, read them all, analyze every detail that may point into direction of who the killer was. It is time consuming and not much fun, that's why we think it is the hard way.
Every case has it's motive, if you will find the motive behind the crime you do not need to get through all of the evidence, only that bits that might confirm your theory. It is less time consuming and will put your brain to the test.
When you think you have idea who the killer was and you have (or you think you have) the evidence to back it, you send your solution to the Game Master via special form. Game Master will review your solution and will let you know if your solution was right or not.
If your solution wasn't accepted by Game Master you can modify it and send again. There is no time limit or limit on numbers of solutions you want to send, but the solution that can be accepted by Game Master must be backed by some evidence or at least strong theory based on facts.
